Nor'easter brings outages, road closures

Heavy rain and winds hit Falmouth hard on Friday and Saturday, leaving police, fire, public works, and Eversource officials to clean up the aftermath.

The winter Nor'easter, which started Friday and steadily intensified into Saturday, left nearly 70 percent of homes in town without power at its peak. The storm left town officials to deal with numerous road closures on Friday and Saturday, including those on major roadways such as Sandwich Road, Brick Kiln Road, Surf Drive, and the intersection of Jones Road and Gifford Street, among others.

Smith said the severity of the storm led fire officials to double their daily staffing levels to 24 personnel across the department. He said the department also set up its emergency operations center inside fire headquarters on Main Street to help coordinate storm response between various town departments.

Lieutenant Doug DeCosta of the Falmouth Police Department said police responded to 250 service calls over the weekend. Those included similar reports of downed trees and wires, traffic hazards, and road closures, as well as calls for welfare checks and motor vehicle crashes.

On Friday, police posted a photo of a tree that had fallen atop of a vehicle at the intersection of Worcester Court and Davis Straits. No one was injured in the accident.

Public works crews worked Friday night and through Saturday to clean up trees and debris off of roadways all across town. On heavily-traveled roadways such as Jones Road, remnants of cut-up, fallen trees were readily seen on properties and the side of the road.

"There were a lot of safety concerns, because there were so many down power lines and trees," Deputy Chief Smith said.

Falmouth High School was open as an emergency shelter area for residents without power from 5 PM Saturday to 4 PM Sunday.

Eversource officials, meanwhile, worked to restore power to households. In a Facebook post, the Falmouth Emergency Preparedness Division, citing an update from Town Manager Julian Suso, reported that 256 homes were still without power as of 8 AM Monday morning, down from more than 17,000 homes at the height of the storm.